BPN764: Untethered Stress-Engineered MEMS MicroFlyers

Project ID

BPN764

Website

Start Date

Tue 2014-Aug-12 21:28:21

Last Updated

Wed 2015-Feb-04 22:03:03

Abstract

In this project, we are developing and testing microscale flying structures, called Microflyers. The microflyers consist of a 300 µm × 300 µm sized chassis fabricated from polycrystalline silicon using surface micromachining. At present, the flyers are levitated using microfabricated heaters attached to an underlying substrate. A novel, in-situ masked post-release stress-engineering process is used to generate a concave upwards curvature of the flyers chassis, causing static pitch and roll stability during flight, take-off, and landing. The initial experiments have demonstrated stable levitation. The microflyers represent an attractive airborne reconnaissance platform due to their microscale size, and thus stealth operation.